Sony Music is cutting ties with singer R. Kelly, who has been dogged by sexual abuse allegations for some two decades, a source tells Variety, adding that the company has no immediate plans to make an announcement. However, the magazine notes, Kelly was removed from the RCA Records (a subsidiary of Sony Music) website Friday morning. Variety says it reached out to reps at RCA and Sony, but they declined to comments. A new focus has been put on Kelly and his alleged misdeeds with the release of a Lifetime documentary series Surviving R. Kelly.
In the wake of the series, Kelly’s estranged daughter called her father a “monster” and Lady Gaga has sought to distance herself from a 2013 duet she did with the singer. In other Surviving R. Kelly fallout, the singer’s former manager, James Mason, on Friday surrendered to authorities in Georgia over a warrant issued over the summer, CNN reports. Mason is accused of threatening the father of a woman who appeared in the Lifetime series. “I’m going to do harm to you and your family … I’m going to f---ing kill you,” Mason allegedly said to Timothy Savage, father of Joycelyn Savage, last May. (Surviving R. Kelly may have spurred an investigation.)